What’s Next? Rawson Duo Concert Series, 2018 - 19 May: Brahms & Dvorak . . . and the Rawson Trio! Friday and Sunday, May 3 & 5 at 2pm, cellist Ian Rawson will be coming up from southern California to join us for his second appearance on our concert series, performing two of the greatest masterworks of the violin, cello, and piano repertoire: the magnificent Piano Trio in C Major, Op. 87, by Johannes Brahms and Antonin Dvorak’s epic Trio in F minor, Op. 65. Departing from our usual passion for the unknowns, occasionally we go for the mainstream gold. What a program – and with our fine-cellist son to boot! (please note, reservations are $30 for a special event with guest performer this time; when it’s just us, our usual duo concerts will remain $25)

And beyond that? . . . as the fancy strikes (check those emails and website)

Reservations: Seating is limited and arranged through advanced paid reservation, $30 (as per special event with guest performer) Contact Alan or Sandy Rawson, email [email protected] or call 379-3449. Notice of event details, dates and times when scheduled will be sent via email or ground mail upon request. Be sure to be on the Rawsons’ mailing list. For more information, visit: www.rawsonduo.com

H A N G I N G O U T A T T H E R A W S O N S (take a look around) Harold Nelson has had a lifelong passion for art, particularly photo images and collage. It sustained him through years of working in the federal bureaucracy with his last sixteen in Washington DC. He started using his current collage technique in 2004, two years before retirement from his first career and his move from Virginia to Port Townsend. His art is shown frequently at the Northwind Arts Center and other local venues. Harold’s 2012 triptych, “The Big Picture,” overlooks the piano, and “Paul’s Mountain” (2011) hangs beside the woodstove. A recent copy of Gourmet magazine made its way through the shredder to be reworked by Harold’s hand into the triangular piece adorning the kitchen. www.hnelsonart.com HOUSE NOTES

Please, no food or drink near the piano and performing area. No photography during performance, and be sure to turn off all electronics, cell phones, etc.

A note about chairs ~ following the music If you would like to move your chair out of the way for the reception (optional), please lean them against the wall on the carpet remnant next to the wood stove and not on the slippery floor. Any extras may be placed in the nearby closet or remain setup for use out in the room. Thanks! Cough drops are provided for your convenience. At the home of Alan and Sandy Rawson, 10318 Rhody Drive, Chimacum WA Friday and Sunday, March 29 & 31, 2 pm Cover image: Cortona, Toscany ~ Rawson Duo on the road, June, 2000 T h e R a w s o n D u o Bella Italia

Specializing in Romantic and early twentieth-century works, the Rawson Duo has given numerous recitals on college campuses and community performing arts series Sonata in D Major (ca. 1710 / 1920) Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) across the United States and Canada. The Rawsons now reside in Chimacum where they perform throughout the year in the intimate setting of their home located on 7.5 acres, modern piano realization by (1879-1936) bringing to life rarely heard works celebrated with warm hospitality. Violinist Alan Rawson first pursued his music interests in his junior year in high Moderato (a fantasia) / Allegro moderato school as a self-taught folk guitarist, recorder player, and madrigal singer. Classical Violin Largo / Vivace studies were begun at Cañada Junior College in Redwood City California, since their program did not include Country and Western fiddling. He received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Arts degrees from San Francisco State University and completed his doctorate degree at the University of Colorado in Boulder in violin performance studying Minuetto dalla “Scarlattiana” (1927) with Oswald Lehnert while developing a passionate interest in Rocky Mountain cycling (1883-1947) and cross country skiing. He has served on the music faculties of Concordia College in to Mario Corti Moorhead, Minnesota and the University of Idaho in Moscow, and has recently retired from Minnesota State University Moorhead where he directed the University Orchestra and taught upper strings. He was concertmaster of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony for twenty years and appeared as a featured orchestral soloist several times performing dalla Rhapsodia Napoletana Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) works by Tchaikowsky, Mozart, Sibelius, and Bruch, among others. “Piedigrotta 1924” Mario Corti, arr. (1882-1957) Alan has a passionate interest in exploring the music of past great composers, now all but lost to obscurity, and he is actively researching, locating and scanning public domain Notte ‘e luna (night and the moon) scores, making these freely available to the internet community worldwide. Tarantella scura (dark tarantella) A native of Fargo, ND, Sandy Rawson completed her Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance at the University of Minnesota and continued her studies at the Musik Akademie in Vienna, Austria. During her long tenure in the Fargo Moorhead area, she was a highly active accompanist and large ensemble pianist performing with all the major ~ l’ intervallo ~ organizations including opera, symphony, choral, ballet, universities and public schools. She frequently appeared on faculty and guest artist recitals at the three local universities, NDSU, Sonata in la (1919) Ildebrando Pizzetti MSUM, and Concordia College. An active church organist from the age of 14, she held the post of organist at the First Congregational Church in Fargo for 25 years and more recently at (1880-1968) Sequim Community Church for 12 years until the termination of their traditional service. to Mario Corti Sandy’s love of music is equaled by her love for cooking. A professionally trained 1. Tempestoso (stormy) chef, having lived several years in Europe and Japan, international cuisine has been a lifelong passion. Today’s Bella Italia reception menu: 2. Preghiera per gl’innocenti: Molto Largo (“prayer of the innocent”) e —— A N T I P A S T I DOLCI —— 3. Vivo e fresco (lively and fresh) Il Tricolore – cake with colors of the Italian flag Torta Rustica – tart filled with cheese and salami Violinist Mario Corti (1882-1957), born in Guastalla, Reggio Emilia Peperoni Ripieni – sweet peppers filled with sausage (near ), studied violin and composition at Liceo Musicale in Polpette di Melanzane – eggplant “meatballs” (vegan) Bologna, became professor of violin at Parma Conservatory in 1907, Biscotti di Pinoli – pine nut cookies followed by Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory in Berlin in 1914, until ’s entrance into WW1 (April, 1915), returned to Crostini Piccante – savory spread on crostini Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in from then on. His extensive Certosino di Bologna – fruit cakes from Bologna (vegetarian) performing career was devoted mainly to revival of Italian baroque Palla di Neve al Cioccolato – chocolate “snowballs” violin music and promoting contemporary Italian composers, receiving numerous dedications and premiere performances. (1926 photo) An excerpt from a lengthy article, Ildebrando Pizzetti by Guido M. Gatti and Theodore Baker that a few appeared in The Musical Quarterly, January, 1923 describes the Sonata in la: Bits of Interest*

Its composition was begun in September, 1918, at a time when the PIEDIGROTTA Oh sole mio . . . Santa Lucia . . . Italians over the centuries have taken flames of war were nearing extinction, and was finished during the winter song to their hearts like no other, and the Neapolitan song of the Piedigrotta festival is at the center of the following year, at the dawn of a period of calm and spiritual of their celebrated passion. From The Italy of the Italians (1906) Helen Zimmern explains. refreshment for our life and its joys; and in truth, his advance from the “. . . the Neapolitan songs have a cachet that is all their own, and reflects the hot, passionate initial period to the close seems to conform to the march of these exterior temperament of the region which is in such sharp contrast with the cooler, more sentimental and events, in so far—let us hasten to add—as it does not attempt in any slightly cynical Tuscan. The prototype of the modern Neapolitan canzone can be sought in the way to express musically the extrinsic phenomenon, but rather the most popular "Funiculi, funicula" of Denza, all alive with brio and sparkling with animal joy. intimate drama of the musician’s soul-life as it passed through the crises of suffering and gained renewed confidence in company with that of all “Every year some new songs enrich the popular Neapolitan mankind. The drama concludes—and no one having knowledge of the repertoire. At the annual fete of the Madonna of Piedigrotta, a Pizzettian ethos could imagine its concluding otherwise—in a renewed village just outside Naples, that falls in the summer are first heard vision of serenity and tenderness wherein lies the profession of faith the songs that will be sung in all the length and breadth of Italy “that it is good to live.” In the first movement (tempestoso) the pianoforte bust of Mario Pizzetti during the coming year. It is a species of popular competition in creates, with an incisive theme that grows more and more inexorable, ca. 1920 which of late even noted composers have taken part. It is amusing verging on an obsession, the agitated background of the world in tumult, while the violin laments, to be present at this festival and to listen to the returning crowds like some weak soul prostrated by the tempest, with a theme of agonized fear. These two themes all singing in a mass the successful song. For every Italian is quick proceed in parallel development and independently of the general tempo; and here we have one of at picking up a tune. Thus, the day following that in which a new the most individual characteristics of the Sonata, and especially of this first movement —the two opera has been performed, it is a common thing to hear the themes are never taken up in alternation, now by one instrument and now by the other. After a more tranquil episode, wrought over a theme in Gregorian style, we are again in the full tide of the drama, workman going out to his work, the baker's boy or the milkman which now urges tensely forward to the end, rushing on with hardly a breathing-space—like an bringing their wares, whistling or humming the most attractive air, ananke* that no one is able to curb and under whose headlong assaults poor frail humanity bends, and they will repeat it, too, with exactness and sentiment. And many an Italian who owns a piano, so that one hears only its stifled sobs. even if he cannot read a note, will pick out the new tunes upon the instrument, even though he may only have heard them once.” The second movement is in the form of a prayer (Preghiera). Here the tempest is stilled; man again finds his faith, and clings to it with every fibre of his being; that peace which his fellow men Another account of the festival comes from Macmillan’s Magazine in 1896, “The Songs of are unable or unwilling to grant him, he humbly implores of God; while from his lips fall the the Piedigrotta.” Rather the opposite of today's Twitter brevity, this wordy description paints a tenderest, the simplest, the most heartfelt words that he has spoken since childhood. In this colorful and chaotic picture. movement Pizzetti gives us, in very truth, the measure of his emotional power. The tone in which “We stood on the balcony of a villa on the brow of the hill which, at the west end of Naples, he speaks to us is quiet, indeed, but so vibrant with passion that we cannot remain unmoved. In forms a tolerably acute angle with the long promontory of Posilipo, enclosing all the curve of this music there is no formal premeditation; the repetition of episodes, even the equilibrium Mergellina and its port, and the church, square, and grotto of Piedigrotta, where, each year, takes between successive sections, are not felt to be carefully considered and calculated, but the place the great festival. spontaneous result of the emotion itself in creating them out of its own unity and its peculiar possibilities of development and progression. This entire movement is an instrumental declamation “As we stood there, at three o'clock in the morning in broad periods, with the grandest rhythmic freedom, and with the two instruments in alternate of the 8th of September, with the moon riding high in a imitation. Castelnuovo-Tedesco rightly observes . . . that it is difficult, in this “prayer of the sky half veiled with a slight haze, and a perfect calm in innocent,” to identify the several themes, because it is all theme. For the rest, the reader already the atmosphere, there came up from far below, where knows what we have said in praise of the vocality of the Pizzettian themes—a theme in C major an illuminated space showed among the houses on the (a thing of horror for a “modernist”!) . . . sea-shore, a noise, colossal, imposing, more The third movement, in form much resembling a rondo, is borne onward upon a joyous multitudinous than the roar of angry waves on a rocky theme in the style of a folk-melody, and retains this rustic character throughout its development coast. And this noise arose almost entirely from human (save in the yearning episode towards the end, like an echo of olden sorrow), closing the throats, for what was not the human voice itself was drama with a smile bright as a rainbow, and a vision of Nature refreshed. And it is ever thus the innumerable blowing of breath through trumpets in the works of Pizzetti; there is always a radiance behind the clouds, serenity after anguish, and whistles of all descriptions and sizes, in all varieties purification following on evil. of unmelodious notes, mixed rarely with the blast of wind instruments belonging to bands of music, the drums of which hardly counted. We heard in fact the "voice of the people" wafted up, from sunset to dawn, and raised, not in acclamation of some public event, not in protest against some crying wrong, *In Greek mythology, Ananke, was the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as but purely for its own inane but good humoured pleasure; a pleasure derived from being this people, for holding a spindle. She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos. She was seen as the most powerful dictator of all fate and circumstance which meant that mortals, as well as the at least one whole night, masters of the city.” Gods, respected her and paid homage. * mostly hewn from the internet About Menuetto dalla “Scarlattiana” and the Vivaldi / Respighi Sonata – At the period, rather than turning to impressionism. His first symphony beginning of the 20th century Baroque music had been on the back shelf and forgotten for over of 1905 is from this time, and it is with this work that Casella made 150 years, but a period of rediscovery was starting to come about. Also, historians talk about his debut as a conductor when he led the symphony’s premiere in a “neo” Baroque and Classical movement in the 1920s where composers scaled back and Monte Carlo in 1908. reconnected with the past, contrasting with freshness the overblown and exhausted sounds of Back in Italy during World War I, he began teaching piano at the traditional Romantic styled music. Alfredo Cassella’s “Scarlattiana,” originally for piano and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Casella was one of orchestra in 5 movements, and inspired by the great keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti the best-known Italian piano virtuosos of his generation, and together (1865-1757), was of this style. He later reworked the 3rd movement, Minuetto, as a stand- with Arturo Bonucci (cello) and Alberto Poltronieri (violin), he formed alone piece for violin and piano. the Trio Italiano in 1930, which played to great acclaim in Europe Ottorino Respighi, already a national sensation with his orchestral music (such as and the USA. His stature as a pianist and his work with the Trio Fountains of Rome, 1916 and Ancient Airs and Dances, 1917), produced a series of “edited” gave rise to some of his best known works, including A Notte Alta, sonatas for violin and modern piano by Baroque masters, 3 works by Veracini, 1 by Porpora, the Sonatina, Nove Pezzi, and the Six Studies, Op. 70, for piano. and Vivaldi’s Sonata in D major. These were pioneer editions in the world of historic Casella by Fortuna Depero Casella had his biggest success with the ballet La Giara, set to a musicology. Historians have since thoroughly researched and rediscovered performance scenario of Pirandello’s; other notable works include Italia, the Concerto Romano, Partita, and practices of the Baroque period in finite detail, and today we enjoy a wealth of dedicated Scarlattiana for Piano and Orchestra, the Violin and Cello Concerti, Paganiniana, and his Concerto performers and their recordings on authentically reconstructed instruments. Respighi set out for Piano, Strings, Timpani and Percussion. In 1923, together with Gabriele D’Annunzio and Gian in a new field at the time, and his edition of Vivaldi captures as much the spirit of this modern Francesco Malipiero from Venice, Alfredo Casella founded the Società Nazionale di Musica to promote Italian as it does the master of 200 years earlier. the spread of modern Italian music. The Generazione dell’Ottanta (Generation of 1880), included Alfredo Casella, Ildebrando Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was born and brought up in the Pizzetti, and Ottorino Respighi, among others. All born around 1880, this post-Puccini generation Italian province of Tuscany and began composing at the age of only concentrated more on writing instrumental works, rather than the operas in which Puccini and nine. In 1915 he began study with Ildebrando Pizzetti, one of the his musical forebears had specialised, and were the dominant figures in Italian music after most influential teachers in Italy at the time. He also came to the Puccini’s death in 1924. notice of pianist and composer Alfredo Casella, who was an early Ottorino Respighi was born in Bologna, where his father was a piano teacher, and taught proponent of his music, programming it in his recitals and promoting his son violin and piano. He continued studying violin with Federico Sarti at the Liceo Musicale it in his many writings on new music. Castelnuovo was a successful in Bologna, and composition with and the early pianist, performing as soloist, accompanist and chamber musician, music scholar Luigi Torchi. In 1900, Respighi studied composition and was involved in the formation of the Società Nazionale di Musica. for five months with Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia, while he was In1938, Castelnuovo was forced by the rising tide of anti-Semitism employed as first violinist in the orchestra of the Russian Imperial in Italy to flee to America, where he soon found work as a composer Theatre in St Petersburg during its season of Italian opera. He also of film music for MGM Studios. He contributed to over 200 films had composition lessons with Max Bruch in 1902 in Berlin. Until and at the same time somehow found time to write concert music, 1908 his principal activity was as first violin in the Mugellini Quintet, although he evidently found the experience of leaving his homeland shattering. In time, he became before turning his attention entirely to composition. Respighi lived one of Los Angeles’ most sought-after composition teachers, with pupils including John Williams, in Rome from 1913 for the rest of his life, after being appointed a Henry Mancini and André Previn, the latter commenting that ‘pupil of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’ teacher of composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia there. was virtually a requirement for young composers to be accepted at the studios. From 1923 to 1926 he was director of the Conservatorio. He Castelnuovo’s catalogue extends to opus 208 or thereabouts, not to mention works without maintained an uneasy relationship with Mussolini’s Fascist Party opus number, including operas (one on ‘The Merchant of Venice’, another, ‘Saùl’), concertos for during his later years, vouching for more outspoken critics such as which various instruments (his second violin concerto, subtitled ‘I Profeti’, commissioned by Heifetz), allowed them to work on under the regime. Feste Romane, the third part of his Roman trilogy, chamber music for many different combinations of instruments, ballet scores, oratorios and has been seen by many as a response to the regime’s demands to glorify Italy under the cantatas, nearly 300 solo songs with piano plus many more with guitar. Fascists. However as with much of the work of Shostakovich, the ‘celebration’ is ambiguous, if not satirical. Ildebrando Pizzetti was born in Parma, the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was Ildebrando’s first teacher. At first Pizzetti seemed headed for a career as a Alfredo Casella came from a musical family; his grandfather, a friend of Nicolo Paganini, playwright—he had written several plays, two of which had been produced—before he decided was first cello in the San Carlo Theater in Lisbon and eventually was soloist in the Royal Chapel in 1895 on a career in music and entered the Conservatorium of Parma where gained the beginnings in Torino. Casella entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1896 to study piano under Louis Diémer of his lifelong interest in the early , reflected in his own music and his writings. and composition under Gabriel Fauré, where George Enescu and Ravel were classmates. During his Parisian period, Debussy, DeFalla, and Igor Stravinsky were acquaintances, and he was in He taught at the Conservatory in (director from 1917 to 1923), directed the contact with Ferruccio Busoni, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss as well. Casella developed an Conservatory from 1923, and was Respighi’s successor at the Academy of St. Cecilia from admiration for Debussy after hearing the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune in 1898, but pursued 1936 to 1958) His students included Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Olga Rudge and Franco a more romantic vein stemming from Richard Strauss and G. Mahler in his own writing of this Donatoni. Also a music critic, he wrote several books on the music of Italy and of Greece and co-founded a musical journal. Enrico Toti How many times at night were our projectors used only to illuminate the enemies that came out to help the wounded and bury the dead; we could have destroyed them, yet a sense of pity urged us to help them. (Enrico Toti in a letter to home in 1916)

Enrico Toti (20 August 1882 in Rome – 6 August 1916 in Monfalcone) was an Italian cyclist, patriot and hero of World War I. Enrico lost his left leg while working for Italian railways, at the age of 24. After his injury he became a cyclist. In 1911, riding on a bicycle with one leg, he cycled to Paris, and then through Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark, up to Finland and Lapland. From there, via Russia and Poland, he returned to Italy in June 1912. In January 1913 Toti started cycling again, this time in Egypt; from Alexandria, he reached the border with Sudan where the English authorities, considering the trail too dangerous, ordered him to end the journey, and sent him to Cairo where he came back to Italy. When war broke out between Italy and the Austrian Empire, Toti tried to volunteer for the Italian army but was not accepted due to his injury. Undaunted, he reached the frontline with his bicycle and managed to serve as an unpaid, unregistered, fully non-regulation "civilian volunteer" attached to several units. Forced to leave the combat zone and return home by the Carabinieri (Military Police), Toti stubbornly returned to the front and finally managed to join (still unofficially) the 3rd Bersaglieri Bicycle Battalion. He was killed in the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo. Fatally wounded in a clash, he hurled his crutch at the enemy. Before falling on the ground he shouted: "Nun moro io!" (romanesco vernacular for "I do not die!"). He was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor (Italy's highest award for valour), one of the relatively few civilians to have this honor bestowed on them. Two submarines of the Italian Navy were named after Toti (1926 & 1968), and two statues stand in his honor, in Pigneto district and Villa Borghese gardens of Rome. (WikiPedia) from the weekly front page, September, 1916